Passing the torch

After more than a decade of serving as the U.S. CMS collaboration board chair, Caltech's Harvey Newman passed the torch to Nick Hadley of the University of Maryland last month. The leadership change comes at a time when the U.S. CMS collaboration transitions from construction and commissioning to an operating experiment as the Large Hadron Collider prepares to start up in September at CERN.

Harvey Newman

"After a phase change, there is good reason to change the guard every now and then," said Vasken Hagopian, the deputy collaboration board chair who served with Newman for roughly 10 years and will continue to play the same role with Hadley.

During his years as collaboration board chair, Newman made extensive contributions to the CMS design and physics program. He had an instrumental role in upgrading the computing network for U.S. CMS, not to mention other countries in Europe and South America. As a result of his efforts, multiple countries in the international CMS collaboration now have access to enough computing power to actively analyze data from the LHC, making more scientific discoveries possible. "Harvey made sure that the U.S. CMS collaboration could be leaders, not followers," Hagopian said. "I am very grateful that we had such an active person representing U.S. CMS for so long."

Nick Hadley

As the new collaboration board chair, Hadley will focus on making sure that all U.S. institutions can participate in the physics that will come out of the CMS experiment, from taking shifts in the Remote Operations Center at Fermilab to analyzing data. "I plan to particularly concentrate on enabling the younger scientists to get the recognition they deserve for their work," Hadley said. "It's time to move onto the next phase, get the detector up and, hopefully, make some discoveries."

In addition to CMS, Hadley has been a member of the DZero experiment at Fermilab since the '80s.

-- Elizabeth Clements

Photo of the Day

Chris Quigg receives Humboldt award

Fermilab theoretical physicist Chris Quigg accepts an Alexander von Humboldt
Research Award on June 24 at the Opernpalais Unter den Linden in Berlin,
Germany. He was one of two dozen recipients. The prestigious award
recognizes a lifetime of achievement in research. As part of the award,
Quigg will spend periods of time over the next few years working at
Universitšt Karlsruhe and other German institutions. Quigg is best known for
his pioneering work on electroweak symmetry breaking, which led to a better
understanding of the Higgs mechanism in the Standard Model. He is currently
working on a book about gauge theories. While in Germany, Quigg plans to
continue his research on electroweak symmetry breaking and his studies in astrophysics.

In the News

Fermilab looks for visitors from another dimension

From Scientific American, September 2008

The detection of extra dimensions beyond the familiar four-the three dimensions of space and one of time-would be among the most earth-shattering discoveries in the history of physics. Now scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., are designing a new experiment that would investigate tantalizing hints that extra dimensions may indeed exist.

Last year researchers involved in Fermilab's MiniBooNE study, which detects elusive subatomic particles called neutrinos, announced that they had found a surprising anomaly. Neutrinos, which have no charge and very little mass, form out of nuclear reactions and particle decays. They come in three types, called flavors-electron, muon and tau-and oscillate wildly from one flavor to another as they travel along. While observing a beam of muon neutrinos generated by one of Fermilab's particle accelerators, the MiniBooNE researchers found that an unexpectedly high number of the particles in the low-energy range (below 475 million electron volts) had transformed into electron neutrinos. After a year of analysis, the investigators have failed to come up with a conventional explanation for this so-called low-energy excess. The mystery has focused attention on an intriguing and very unconventional hypothesis: a fourth kind of neutrino may be bouncing in and out of extra dimensions.

A green home away from home

Dave Carlson, head of the Business Services Section, wrote today's column.

Dave Carlson

Every year, around 2,000 scientists, students and their families use the accommodations on the Fermilab site. A great deal of organization, planning and logistics go into making their stay comfortable and pleasant.

The Accommodations Department, led by Jack Hawkins, manages the on-site housing. It maintains 85 buildings and manages services and facilities such as Chez Leon, the Users' Center and the Wilson Hall cafeteria. Beyond taking good care of guests from all over the world and feeding a host of employees and visitors, the department takes pride in providing safe, healthy and environmentally responsible facilities.

To save energy, the department is in the midst of switching to compact fluorescent lights in all housing units. Housing staff usually installs the CFLs when a house or apartment is prepared for its next occupants.

Responsible use of climate control can make a big difference in energy consumption and cost, too. Programmable thermostats, widely used throughout the Fermilab Village, allow residents to adjust the temperature settings. But the settings are often not returned to energy-saving levels. The Housing Office is in the process of setting up password-protected thermostat programs. With the new programs, residents still can adjust the temperature settings as necessary, but the thermostats automatically restore energy-saving set points after a few hours.

Residents also have asked the Accommodations Department whether lighting could be reduced in unoccupied areas of the dorms. Some lights have no switches because they need to stay on at night to provide safe passage. Most lights, however, have manual switches, but residents forget to turn them off. The Housing Office will check whether it can install motion sensors for some of these lights.

The Housing Office, located in Aspen East, appreciates comments and suggestions and welcomes ideas regarding energy saving, safety and health. Its goal is to provide a clean, comfortable and green environment for our residents - a green home away from home.

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, Aug. 19

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, includes a
reportable incident. An employee suffered a second-degree burn on the right
forearm when the arm touched a hot exhaust pipe as the person tried to turn
off a valve. Also, a student hurt a toe when the person tripped walking up
the auditorium stairs. The final classification of the case is pending. Find the full report here.

Monthly leave sheets due Wednesday
August monthly leave sheets are due in Payroll by 10 a.m. on Wednesday, August 20, 2008.

Salary Review FY09 Q&A available
Salary Review FY09 Questions & Answers are now available online (download Powerpoint) under "What's New in WDRS."

Aug. 21 deadline for University of Chicago Tuition Remission Program
The deadline to apply for the tuition remission program at the University of Chicago for the Fall 2008 quarter is Aug. 21. For more information and enrollment forms, contact Nicole Gee at x3697 or visit the Web site.

URA Visiting Scholars Program applications due Sept. 10
The application deadline for the next round of scholarships for the Universities Research Association's Visiting Scholars Program is Sept. 10. The program will support visits by researchers from URA member institutions to work at Fermilab for periods of up to one year. More information.

Pidgin: on site IM client class Aug. 26 or Aug. 28
Learn what instant messaging has to offer and how to use Pidgin, an instant
messaging client supported by the Computing Division. More information

Take Fermilab's Diversity Survey
Give input on what employee clubs you belong to, what clubs you want formed and how the laboratory should celebrate its diversity through a survey, due Aug. 25. The results will help the Planning Group for Multicultural Events, a subcommittee of the Diversity Council formed last July, select celebration activities such as lectures, displays and performances for an event on Oct. 17. Read more.

Benefit Customer Service Survey
The Benefits Office invites you to participate in a customer service survey. We will use the feedback to evaluate the current service level and compare the results to customer service standards. We appreciate your assistance in gathering this data.
The survey is available in the Benefits Office, WH 15th floor or on the Benefits Office Web site.